A Viral Threat Everyone Needs To Know About

This blog is intended for all internet users. I assume that since you're reading this, you use the internet!

There's a recent worm that hit the market recently called "Downadup" or "Conflicker". If you haven't heard of this, I'm about to blow your mind.

The Conflicker worm is estimated to have been released around October of 2008. It spreads rapidly, like wildfire, throughout connected computers. So far, experts believe it has infected around 15 to 20 million computers, and the number is growing every day. There was a patch released that will supposedly grant immunity to this worm, but since then it is believed that a new version of Conflicker came out that is capable of passing that 'immunity', leaving the majority of computer's still vulnerable.

Why is this worm a big deal? Well, every day, Conflicker tries to connect to 250 random domain names (websites, in a sense), and it checks for updates. So far, there have not been any updates released for Conflicker, but the team that designed this worm only has to release one update in order to harm all infected users. These users include general consumers as well as French naval ships, American air force networks, the U.K. Ministry of Defense, and a number of other major networks around the globe. Security analysts are working around the clock to find out where this worm will get it's updates from so that they can stop it from happening, but the 250 domain names are completely randomized and change with each spread of the worm. All the domain names that have been analyzed give no indication of when it will give an update, nor where the update will come from.

This blog is merely intended to notify you of this threat, and to urge you to tread carefully in the online world. Follow these easy security practices to ensure that you don't fall victim to online threats:

- Do NOT open emails unless you personally know the sender. Even if you know them, look for signs that indicate it's a spam message that found it's way into their email and forwarded itself to you. These include anything that is trying to sell you something or sign up for a service.

- Do NOT click on advertisements that usually have flashing messages of some sort. These messages include "Winning a free laptop or other electronic device" as well as "You have two messages waiting for you! Click here to view". Know the website that you're at. To be safe, when traveling to a website from an email message, don't click on the link in the email. Instead, open up your internet browser and type out the address. Example - "www.ebay.com" or "www.amazon.com" instead of just trusting the links that an email provides.

- Do NOT browse the internet without Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware. This is like walking into a war zone with no weapons or protection. Viruses and worms can easily penetrate something that isn't well protected, and would love nothing more than to get into your computer to steal files.

- Pay attention to your computer. If you have a message pop up in the lower right corner of your screen saying "Please update Windows" or "Your Anti-Virus is out of date", fix the problem by updating or renewing your subscription.

- Are you getting pop ups? Are they coming up without you browsing the internet? If so, your computer could potentially have a virus. Use your Anti-Virus program to scan and see if it finds anything.

- Clear cookies on a daily or weekly basis. You can do this by going to (for Flock and Firefox users) "Tools" at the top of the window, then "Options". Open the "Privacy" tab and click the "Clear Now" button. Make sure that the option for "Cookies" is checked, then click "Clear Private Data Now". I'm not going to tell you how to do this with Internet Explorer, because you shouldn't be using it! For Safari users, click on the "Safari" tab at the top once it's open, then click "Empty Cache". You could also "Reset Safari" to clear out all temporary files.

These are simple security methods that you can implement to help double or triple your security online.

I hope you have found this blog informative. Feel free to subscribe or add me to your RSS reader! This blog will be updated daily, so keep checking back! If you have any questions or would like to see a blog about a certain topic you're curious about, email me.

Thanks for reading,
-Nick